Short Summary

INTRODUCTION: King Hussein of Jordan is celebrating his silver jubilee year -- the 25th anniversary of his accession to the throne.

Description

INTRODUCTION: King Hussein of Jordan is celebrating his silver jubilee year -- the 25th anniversary of his accession to the throne. He was proclaimed King by a decree of the Jordanian parliament on 11 August, 1952, and crowned a year later.

SYNOPSIS: Hussein, who held a jubilee reception at the Raghdan Palace in Amman, the Jordanian capital, on Sunday (March 27), comes from a direct line of Kings. He was born in Amman on 14 November 1935, the grandson of the Emir Abdullah, the first King of Transjordan - later Jordan. Educated in England at Harrow School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, he was only 17 when his father, King Talal, abdicated his throne due to an incurable mental illness.

Hussein's twenty five years on the throne have seen his country fight a major war with Israel; lose a substantial part of its territory; and gain a disruptive injection of Palestinian refuges and guerrillas. The civil war which broke out in 1970 between the Jordanian army and the Palestinian guerrillas almost cost him his throne.

Under pressure from the other Arab states, King Hussein signed an agreement with the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. But then he went on to drive the guerrillas out of Jordan altogether.

It was only at the Rabat summit in Morocco three years ago that he recognised the claim of the Palestine Liberation Organisation to speak for all Palestinians.